Category: Personal Revival

How A NASA Astronaut Found Jesus: ‘Christ Completely Turned My Life Upside Down’

Jeff Williams’ fascination with science began at a young age growing up in Winter, Wisconsin, where he avidly consumed books on the subject.

Encouraged by a teacher, he pursued his passion. Little did he know that it would lead him to a remarkable career in the military, and he would eventually break a record by spending 534 days in space as an astronaut with NASA.

In an interview with The Christian Post, the 65-year-old revealed how his lifelong love of science and his faith in Christ intersect. Although he didn’t spend much time in church during his childhood, he detailed how he and his wife came to Christ during a tumultuous time in their marriage.

Growing up, Williams said he “was always pretty good at school” and especially enjoyed studying “math and science and engineering.”

“And eventually, [those were] areas in which I decided I wanted to study and grow into, and that’s what ended up happening once I got to the [U.S.] Military Academy,” Williams shared. 

“I did well in school. It was a very small school. There were only 34 people in my graduating class, but I graduated high school as the valedictorian class president and as president of the student council.”  

While in eighth grade, Williams explored what faith in God should look like. His family considered themselves Christian, but they never attended church.  

“On my own, I went and joined a confirmation class with a local Lutheran pastor. At that phase in my life, I had a lot of questions about faith and the Bible. And I remember that was a very profound year for me,” Williams said.  

“Joining the confirmation class was something I did on my own. It was not in the context of my family. And following the class, my faith kind of went on pause once I got into high school. So I always had very little participation in a church, even in that year I did the confirmation class.” 

Williams graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1980, and six months later, he married his wife, Anna-Marie, who was raised as a non-religious Catholic. According to Williams, they did not become active in their faith until about seven years later when they faced “some pretty significant difficulties” in their marriage.

During this time, Williams said, “God put Christians around us.” The couple moved to Texas because of his military status. It was in Texas that his wife came “to faith after hearing the Gospel.”

“And then, I spent the next several months trying to understand what happened to her by studying the scriptures. I studied the Gospel of John and the letter to the Romans, primarily,” said Williams.  

Following their move to Texas, Williams was stationed in Alabama, where he continued to read the Bible to better understand his wife’s newfound faith.  

“One day, I asked her to come to Alabama for a long weekend in January of 1988. And I asked her to help me pray to commit my life to Christ on that weekend,” Williams detailed. 

“And that’s when we began to rebuild our marriage and how we raised our children and how we approached life altogether.”

From there, Williams said, he and his family started attending church together whenever he was home.

“Christ completely turned my life upside down,” he shared.

“Instead of living for myself and without a greater purpose, now I had a purpose for myself and my family,” Williams said.  

“I became aware through a growing awareness and understanding of calling in life that we’ve been created for a purpose, and that purpose is to serve God and our fellow man. So that was a profound change in my approach to life.” 

After graduating from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School class 103 in 1993, Williams was selected as an astronaut in 1996.

By then, he already had a firmly established belief in Jesus and believed science and Christianity were not in conflict.

“By the time I was selected to be an astronaut, I knew that questions would come up a lot,” said Williams. “So, I spent a lot of time and effort studying the material to address those questions and, for example, the apparent conflict between the theory of evolution and all of the associated philosophies.” 

“Since the early ’90s, I’ve been studying this area because of the questions I knew I would get, the questions that I continue to get, and the requests that I get to come speak on the topic.”

In 2016, Williams broke the record for most cumulative days spent in space, which was later broken by Peggy Whitson. During his career, he was the commander of Expedition 47/48 in 2016, a flight engineer and lead spacewalker for STS-101 in 2000, a flight engineer for Expedition 13 in 2005, a flight engineer for Expedition 21 in 2009, and commander of Expedition 22 in 2009. 

In 2010, after returning from Expedition 21, Williams released his book The Work of His Hands: A View Of God’s Creation From Space, which recounts his observations as he orbited the Earth more than 2,800 times and took more photographs of the Earth than any astronaut in history. Every shot contains lessons about God’s creation, according to the book’s description. 

Williams said the often-promoted idea that “science is the reason we progress” while “the Bible draws us back and regresses us” is false.

“Even the term of the so-called ‘dark ages,’ which were, in fact, not so dark, is a derogatory term that supports that thesis that ‘religion, in general, Christianity specifically, is regressive. It wants to take us back. It wants to draw us back,'” said Williams. “So that’s the biggest challenge.” 

According to Williams, failing to engage with the Bible and understand how science and Christianity can coexist poses a significant risk.

“I regard the ultimate authority to be the Word of God. The Word of God is true. It is the Word of God, the Creator of all things, and the One who we know is our Redeemer. So it is authoritative,” Williams said.  

“I just have to do the work to understand it, to draw the truth out of it, and to apply that truth to the world around us. If you don’t regard the Bible as authoritative, then you’re going to replace it with something else.”

The Williamses have two adults sons and four grandchildren. They reside in Battle Ground, Washington, where they serve at Word of Grace Bible Church. In addition to his degrees in aeronautical engineering and national security, Williams has a doctor of ministry from The Master’s Seminary. 

Nicole Alcindor is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: nicole.alcindor@christianpost.com.

From a Christian Antagonist to an Orthodox Christian Advocate

Last week, a remarkable email was forwarded to me by my staff. It was from Sarahbeth Caplin, someone I had previously interacted with when she was a hostile, “progressive” Christian writing for an atheist website. Why was she contacting me now?

I share all this with you here with her full permission and blessing.

Sarahbeth wrote in her email, “Dear Michael, This article recently came up in a Google search when I was trying to find something else I wrote: [The article was written by me on May 23, 2019, titled, “Misrepresent and Demonize: The Weapon of ‘Progressive’ Christians.”]

She continued: “It’s so funny to read this now, because I no longer recognize the person you’re talking about. At the time, I was going through a period of deconstruction. All the downtime in 2020 forced me to reevaluate everything I believe and why, and I’m happy to say I’ve returned to biblical orthodoxy — including in matters of sexuality. I just thought you would be interested to know that.”

What great news! You can be sure I was quite interested to receive this report, especially in light of the article that she linked which I began with these words: “Last week, I encouraged Christian parents in California who had children in public schools to defy the law and pull their kids from the state’s extreme sex-ed curriculum. How did the Friendly Atheist’s resident Episcopalian blogger respond?

“According to Sarahbeth Caplin, I want these parents to teach ‘their kids that transgender people don’t exist.’ (Yes, she actually wrote this.)”

She added (back in 2019), “This is just faith-based, hate-fueled fear-mongering. It’s the only subject in which Michael Brown is an expert.”

In response, I wrote, “What a sad commentary on the nature of liberal illogic. And what a misrepresentation of the facts.”

And I ended the article with this appeal, to which I received no response: “If the state wants to force trash like this on their children, then the righteous, moral, and responsible thing to do is pull their kids out of those classes.

“The only thing hateful is the response of ‘progressives’ like Caplin.

“That being said, Sarahbeth, if you read this, let’s talk. Join me on the air one day, and we can discuss the differences plainly but without vitriol.

“I’m willing if you are.”

That was then, with the old Sarahbeth. What happened to change her views so dramatically? What led to such a wonderful transformation?

When I inquired as to what happened in her life, she shared this with me (which, again, I’m sharing with her full permission):

“I’m not sure how the transformation started exactly, except that at some point I started praying for God to reveal the truth to me — no matter how uncomfortable it made me. And then I started noticing some inconsistencies within the LGBT movement: like how you’re apparently ‘born this way,’ but at the same time, sexuality is also fluid? And for a same-sex attracted person to reject a trans person for a date is apparently transphobic (because the ‘parts’ don’t match the gender identity), even though, according to a sex-positive philosophy, no one is supposed to be shamed for what they are into? That means the logic of gender ideology is actually homophobic! And it sort of spiraled on from there.

“I realized much of my objections to Christian theology in this area were reactionary rather than based on Scripture, so I started studying ‘the clobber verses’ again with a more open mind. And once I finally understood them, I couldn’t go back. Progressive Christianity is entirely built on doubts and questions with little to no foundation of certainty and truth. It was a temporary dwelling place for me to figure some things out, but ultimately not a healthy place to stay. And many of the ‘friends’ I made in that circle dropped me once I started to regain my spiritual footing. They liked me when I questioned things and my faith was struggling, but not when I found it again.

“At that time, I stopped writing for Patheos [and the Friendly Atheist website] … I have since joined the Anglican church (affiliated with ACNA, not the Episcopal branch), and have built a healthy spiritual community there.” (For more on her story, see here.)

In our subsequent interaction, she also wrote this to me: “I reached out to you specifically because I probably sparred with you more than most, and definitely went out of my way to misrepresent your views. I was wrong to do that. I apologize for the version of me you had to deal with!”

How many of us have the maturity to realize that we are reacting rather than processing, responding emotionally rather than based on truth? And how many have the humility — and integrity — to change course so dramatically after we have become known for espousing a particular position or being a particular person? God truly does give grace to the humble!

And what a great summary of “progressive Christianity.” As she wrote, it “is entirely built on doubts and questions with little to no foundation of certainty and truth. It was a temporary dwelling place for me to figure some things out, but ultimately not a healthy place to stay.”

This is the exact opposite of the real Gospel faith, which is built on eternal foundations, filled with certainty and truth, foundations that have stood the test of time.

My interaction with Sarabeth also reminds us of the importance of being gracious to those we differ with, even if our differences are sharp and require strong and clear articulation. As Paul exhorted, “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone” (Colossians 4:6).

We can be unashamed of our faith without being nasty, meanspirited, demeaning, insulting, or self-righteous. And while we may impress our online echo chambers with our so-called boldness (our spiritual justification for acting like jerks), in the end, we will only discredit the Lord and drive away those for whom He died.

In my new book, Why So Many Christians Have Left the Faith: Responding to the Deconstructionist Movement With Unshakable, Timeless Truth, I have a whole chapter devoted to the question, “Can Deconstruction Be Healthy?”

My answer is that if we have honest questions and the right attitude, our faith will be strengthened rather than weakened in the pursuit of truth. But if our attitudes are not right — meaning, if we are looking for an excuse to ditch the Bible or have already become proud in our thoughts about God —  we will likely end up in a spiritual ditch.

Sarahbeth is a great example of a public, “progressive” Christian having a change of heart because of a change of mind. In the days to come, may she be just one among many!

Dr. Michael Brown(www.askdrbrown.org) is the host of the nationally syndicated Line of Fire radio program. His latest book is Revival Or We Die: A Great Awakening Is Our Only Hope. Connect with him on Facebook, Twitter, or YouTube.

Not An Invention of Either Bad or Good Men

The Bible must be the invention either of good men or angels, bad men or devils, or of God. However, it was not written by good men, because good men would not tell lies by saying ‘Thus saith the Lord;’ it was not written by bad men because they would not write about doing good duty, while condemning sin, and themselves to hell; thus, it must be written by divine inspiration.

—Charles Wesley (18 December 1707 – 29 March 1788), Brother of John Wesley, English leader of the Methodist movement, a prolific hymnwriter who wrote over 6,500 hymns during his lifetime

Source: Berean Beacon

A Christian Turned Atheist vs An Atheist Turned Christian

Could two highly intelligent men with two entirely different perspectives possibly help you come to your own personal conclusion concerning the central figure of history? Perhaps. Let’s find out. 

History’s central figure, of course, is Jesus Christ. And the two men I have in mind are American New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman and Canadian astrophysicist Hugh Ross. 

Ehrman professed faith in Christ as a teenager but is now an atheist; whereas Ross grew up in a non-religious home but is now a Christian. One man abandoned Christianity, while the other embraced it.

Ross said, “I didn’t know any Christians or serious followers of any religion while growing up.” Ehrman, on the other hand, said, “For most of my life I was a devout and committed Christian.” 

At age 17, Hugh Ross became the youngest person yet to serve as director of observations for Vancouver’s Royal Astronomical Society. And Bart Ehrman is the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Ross came to faith in Christ after first investigating the world’s major religions. Ross said, “I reasoned that if man invented a religion, it would reflect human error. But, if God communicated, His message would be error free and as consistent as the facts of nature. So, I used the facts of history and science to test each of the ‘holy’ books.”

He stated, “One by one each book failed the factuality test, and I gained confidence that my initial skepticism would be affirmed — until I picked up a Bible.” He found that the Bible “described the 4 fundamental features of big bang cosmology.” 

  1. The beginning of space and time coincident with the beginning of matter and energy.
  2. Continual expansion of the universe from the cosmic beginning.
  3. The constancy of physical laws, and
  4. The pervasiveness of entropy (decay).

After much personal Bible study, Ross said, “I clearly understood that Jesus Christ was the Creator of the universe, that He paid the price only a sinless person could pay for all of my offenses against God, and that eternal life would be mine if I received his pardon and gave Him His rightful place of authority over my life.”

Bart Ehrman, on the other hand, reversed course from his earlier profession of faith. Ehrman said, “I had solid Christian credentials and knew about the Christian faith from the inside out … but then … I started to lose my faith. I now have lost it altogether. I no longer go to church, no longer believe, no longer consider myself a Christian.”

In my recent CP op-ed titled, “When Textual Variants are a Convenient Excuse,” I quoted Bart Ehrman in explaining what led him to walk away from Christ: “It wasn’t problems in the Bible I was wrestling with. It was why is there so much suffering in the world? That’s why I left the faith.”

Ehrman’s attitude toward Jesus became darkened, separating him from the One who said: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12).

Ehrman thinks the Bible misquoted Jesus. Hugh Ross disagrees, and says, “The fact that there is no historical record of called-out mistakes or corrections to the four Gospels by contemporaries of the gospel writers testifies to the accuracy of Jesus’ quotes within them.”

Bart Ehrman no longer believes Christ rose from the dead. Hugh Ross said, “Ehrman is also wrong about the evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus being based on visions alone. There is the empty tomb. The powerful enemies of the emergent Christian faith, the Jewish religious leaders and the Romans, were unable to produce the body of Jesus. Also, it would take more than visions to persuade the 10,000+ Jews living in Jerusalem at that time — more than a third of the total population — to become Christians in the few days that followed Jesus’ death on the cross.”

Bart Ehrman’s unanswered questions about suffering in the world spawned his atheism, whereas Hugh Ross discovered that God’s book of nature is in alignment with God’s revelation in Scripture. This remarkable realization led Ross straight into the arms of our Creator.

Dr. John Lennox is a Northern Irish mathematician, bioethicist, and Christian apologist. Lennox said, “Faith is not a leap in the dark; it’s the exact opposite. It’s a commitment based on evidence … It is irrational to reduce all faith to blind faith and then subject it to ridicule. That provides a very anti-intellectual and convenient way of avoiding intelligent discussion.” 

English theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking said, “Heaven is a fairy tale for people who are afraid of the dark.” John Lennox responded, “Atheism is a fairy story for those who are afraid of the light.” 

Hugh Ross has witnessed time and time again how the evidence in nature is fully consistent with the message of the Bible. Dr. Ross established Reasons to Believe in 1986. This ministry helps people “discover how scientific research and clear thinking consistently affirm the truth of the Bible and of the Good News it reveals.”

Bart Ehrman and Hugh Ross are heading in opposite directions. Jesus identified the wide road to Hell and the narrow road to Heaven in Matthew 7:14,13. You can either believe what Jesus said about these eternal destinations, or what Bart Ehrman says about them. 

But know this: Your personal beliefs will not change God’s book of nature, Scripture, the good news of the Gospel, reality, truth, Heaven, Hell, etc. Your beliefs will only change your heart and your eternal destiny. 

Bart Ehrman and Hugh Ross provide some context as you investigate the book of nature, the message of Scripture, and the historical facts of Christianity. Thankfully, there is still time for you to base your faith upon the breathtaking evidence God has graciously provided. 

(In addition to Dr. Ross’s website, you could explore even more reasons to believe in Evidence that Demands a Verdict by Josh McDowell.)

Dan Delzell is the pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Papillion, Nebraska. 

Source: Christian Post

World’s bestselling New Age author left it all behind for Christ: ‘I was being used by the devil’

Source: Christian Post – February 8, 2023

Once upon a time, Doreen Virtue was one of the most well-known figures in the New Age movement. She was a successful author and purveyor of “angel cards,” an occultic tool, until she had a stunning awakening in 2017 that imploded her worldview and led her to embrace Christ.

Now, Virtue is warning people not to buy her old oracle cards and products, to flee the New Age, not to pray to angels, and to cling to Jesus.

It’s a remarkable turnaround that came after Virtue studied the Bible and, after decades in the New Age movement, saw the true evils of the occult. She’s now trying to undo the impact of her past work.

“I’m devastated that some people may be in Hell now because they were following my work,” Virtue said on the “Ex-Psychic Saved” podcast. “It’s heartbreaking every day to realize my old work’s out there and what I did.”

But Virtue relies on the Lord, telling host Jenn Nizza she’s grateful God opened her eyes and heart to the Gospel and saved her “while there was still time.”

“It’s a miracle,” she said.

Virtue also discussed the roots of her foray into the occult, revealing some of the lies she believed as a child. She recalled thinking she didn’t need to read or trust the Bible, that Jesus was simply a man, and that Christ was essentially a wish-granter.

As Virtue grew up in the shadow of these sentiments, she took a dark path into the New Age and soon found herself doing readings and using angel cards to try and channel spirits to convey information.

Eventually, these activities intensified, and she moved into creating her own angel card decks, finding massive success selling them to others in the New Age movement. At the time, she assumed God was on her side, and she was doing His work; now, she believes otherwise.

“It just became this phenomenon really quickly, and I thought it was God’s blessing on me,” Virtue said. “I didn’t realize that the devil will use people … to further his deception.”

She continued, “And so I was being used by the devil, thinking that I was getting rewarded.”

And by all worldly standards, Virtue did seem to have all the dividends one could ever want: an ocean-front house, nice furniture, and a family. Yet the cracks eventually started to show through.

“I really thought I was a Christian doing God’s work,” she said. “I had no idea that I was an abomination to God by doing and teaching divination until 2017 when I read Deuteronomy 18:10-12, and I was floored when it says there that anyone who does these things … is detestable [and an] abomination to God, and the veil was lifted. I just … fell to my knees.”

The sudden realization her life had been lived contrary to God’s will left Virtue “dumbstruck,” as she began apologizing to the Lord and crying out to Him.

“I … gave my life to Jesus,” she said. “That was the autumn of 2017, and ever since then, I’ve just been telling people, ‘I’m sorry I made these cards. Please don’t use them.'”

Virtue said she’s faced quite a bit of pushback for speaking out against her former angel cards, yet she continues to do so, knowing she previously helped lead many astray.

The former psychic also addressed the accuracy of angel cards and other such tools.

“The trouble is that these angel cards and other divination methods, they do work to a degree, and they …. can predict the future to a degree,” Virtue said. “But it’s a future that’s dangerous and … very often I would follow it, and I would get divorced, or I would be away from my children doing things that were sinful.”

She continued, “God would never give us a message that would be against his commandments.”

Listen to the full episode of the “Ex-Psychic Saved.”

This article originally appeared on CBN’s Faithwire.

www.christianpost.com/news/worlds-bestselling-new-age-author-left-it-all-behind-for-christ.html

Kirk Cameron: The Republic Depends on Us Recapturing the Hearts, Minds of Our Children

Source: Breitbart

The future of the republic depends on those who are willing to recapture the hearts and minds of our children, said actor, director, and author Kirk Cameron during an interview Monday on SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily with host Alex Marlow.

“I believe parents are realizing the most sacred job in the world and the most powerful force for good belongs — wait for it — to parents,” Cameron explained:

That’s why God gives children to moms and dads, not the government. Whoever succeeds in telling children the stories gets to control the future. Dictators know that, patriots know that, liberty loving people understand that. And we can’t outsource parenting to public libraries and public schools. That’s why I’m doing this. That’s why I’m hitting the road and I’m joining forces with grandparents, with parents, with patriots, concerned Americans, to prayerfully and purposefully take back the hearts and minds of our children. The Republic depends upon it.

His comments come after a massive crowd filled the Indianapolis Public Library’s main branch on December 29 to hear him read his recently published children’s book, As You Grow, Breitbart News reported.

“The library organization initially denied Cameron the opportunity to read the book for its story hour but later caved and allowed the event to happen,” the Breitbart News reported, adding Cameron has criticized libraries that barred him from doing a public reading of his book but offered “drag queen story hours” for children.

As You Grow, teaches young readers about love, joy, and gentleness, according to the BRAVE Books website.

When asked what drove him to use different forms of media to promote positive values about America and his faith, Cameron said, “I’ve got great parents, I’ve got a Bible and a newspaper, and a little bit of history tells me that if good people don’t commit to doing the right thing over the long haul, we lose.”

“History is replete with examples of that and what we have in America is rare and precious, it’s called liberty. It’s called freedom, and that’s what I want to fight for for my kids,” he added.

“If we don’t want to have blood on our hands and be filled with guilty consciouses in our sunset years, we’ve got to do everything we can to plant the seeds of liberty, of faith, and morality, so that our children can have a bright and hopeful future. That’s why I’m doing this,” Cameron concluded.

Epaphras: Faithful Friend + Disciple Maker + Prayer Warrior

By Lane Corley

Epaphras is an unsung hero in the New Testament. He’s mentioned only a few times. He started and led churches in three significant cities. He made Paul’s list of faithful companions in Colossians 4. That’s where we learn the most about him. His character has stuck out to me this past year as a model for life and leadership. Who was Epaphras?

A Faithful Friend

As Paul wrote to the Colossians, he called Epaphras “one of you.” Making him a hometown hero of sorts. Paul also calls him “dearly loved” signaling that his reputation was thorough as a friend to all.  

How faithful was Epaphras? Well, Paul calls him a “fellow prisoner.” So he was faithful even to the point of voluntarily going to jail with Paul. Tracing his story, we see that Epaphras was one of several companions who traveled to Rome to be with Paul during his imprisonment. This speaks of his love for Paul and his willingness to sacrifice his own life for his friend and the gospel, as his alliance with Paul would have made him a conspirator in Paul’s supposed crimes. So he was a Faithful Friend through thick and thin. 

Faithful friendship modeled by Epaphras can be as simple as following the One Another’s in the New Testament. And Epaphras’ friendship included the hard ones: Carry One Another’s Burdens, Suffering with One Another, etc.

Who has known my faithful friendship through thick and thin?

Disciple Maker 

Paul calls Epaphras a “faithful minister” and a “faithful servant.” And he reminds the Colossian believers that they “learned it (the gospel) from Epaphras” Col 1:7. This tells us that Epaphras likely started the church in Colossae. Later in chapter 4, Paul says that Epaphras also “works hard” for churches in Laodicea and Hierapolis, two neighboring cities to Colossae.

So, Epaphras was faithful to Jesus’ Great Commission. He made disciples as he went and where he lived. People heard the gospel first from him. As a Disciple of Christ, He leveraged his relational network along with the word of God and the Spirit’s work in the world, and people were saved, groups and churches were started, and eternal destinies were changed. That’s what disciple-makers do.

If you are a Christian, Jesus wants you to be a Disciple Maker. Who has learned the gospel from me? is a question we should ask as we think about Epaphras. It should be a personal ministry. And not just for the super spiritual or classically trained. Beginning a disciple-making ministry can be as simple as this:

  • Make a list of friends who are far from God. 
  • Pray for them every day. 
  • Initiate Gospel conversations with those who express spiritual interest. 
  • Gather them around God’s word to learn the Gospel.
  • Teach them to reach their friends too. 
  • Simple churches may be formed as obedience to the Great Commission happens. 

Epaphras did this in Colossae, then possibly in Laodicea – about 9 miles away, and Hierapolis – about 25 miles away. Imagine the three cities closest to yours having a new witness to the gospel, born out of your disciple-making efforts.

Prayer Warrior

Probably what Epaphras, if known, is most known for, is his life of prayer. His life could be the subject of a book called How to Be a Prayer Warrior. That’s really what the verses in Colossians 4 emphasize for us about his life.

Four words in Colossians 4:12 summarize for us the Epaphras model for prayer that we should all seek to emulate – He was “always wrestling for you.” And Paul tells us what he prayed for: 1) so they will stand, 2) so they will grow, 3) so they will know God’s will. Epaphras prayed for strong, mature, knowledgeable disciples.

In verse 13, Paul continues to describe Epaphras’ life and prayer acknowledging that he “works hard” for the believers and has “deep concern” for their well-being.

Could these descriptions be used to label my life as a prayer partner? Always, Wrestles, For You, Works Hard, Deep Concern. Who have I wrestled/struggled for in prayer? Honestly, compared to Epaphras, my prayer life has been inconsistent, weak, selfish, and apathetic.

How to Be A Prayer Warrior: 

Looking at Epaphras as a model for prayer, how can we become prayer warriors?

1. Commit to Pray Everyday, All Day – “ALWAYS”

Research has shown that only 15% of Christians pray every day. Maturing Christians have a daily time to meet with God. Do you have time set aside to meet with God, to pray, to listen? If not, make that time today.

2. Devote Energy and Attention to Prayer – “WRESTLING”   

To describe prayer as wrestling is to say that this is the kind of prayer that is focused and attentive. This is not praying on the way to work in the car. Or just a rote prayer before meals. Or a quick prayer before an important meeting. 

Wrestling, struggling, and fighting in prayer is to set aside everything else and focus the energy of your heart and mind on a need and beg God for a solution, an answer, a breakthrough. 

Jesus said to go into your private room and shut the door. Jesus went up on a mountain to pray. He was talking about wrestling and struggling in prayer. 

Prayer warriors don’t do drive-by praying. They devote time, energy, and attention to prayer. 

3. Take Prayer and the Needs of Others Personally – “DEEP CONCERN” – “WORKS HARD”

To be a prayer warrior, you need to prioritize your deep concerns. There are so many things lobbying for our deep concern. Politics, Pleasure, People. The disciple-making, prayer warrior is deeply concerned about the souls of people around them, about the glory of God, about obedience to the Great Commission. Deep concern is where your prayer life is defined. If we’re not prioritizing our deep concerns around the deep concerns of God then we’ll never become prayer warriors. Epaphras was deeply concerned for the needs of his fellow believers and it drove him to pray.

I long to be the kind of friend and disciple-maker that prays like Epaphras. Don’t you?

Reflection:

  1. Faithful Friendship – Who has known my faithful friendship through thick and thin?
  2. Disciple Maker – Who has learned the Gospel from me? 
  3. Prayer Warrior – Who have I wrestled/struggled for in prayer? 

Why Everything Is The Way It Is

The prevailing view in today’s media, public schools, and surrounding society is that the Bible isn’t true, no educated person believes in God, and science is the key to life’s mysteries. The lie of evolution becomes so deeply implanted that deliverance is increasingly difficult.

The world rejects “God says” and accepts “science says” as the ultimate truth. Few realize that science cannot answer the important questions: why the universe and life exist, and why every child knows the difference between right and wrong and believes that God exists until taught “better.”

Few know what leading scientists admit. Max Planck, father of Quantum Theory, declared: “Science cannot solve the ultimate mystery of nature.”1 We don’t know what time, space, matter, or energy are—much less the soul and spirit.

Why? cannot be addressed to the universe but only to its Creator. One cannot reason with an earthquake or a hurricane. There is no sympathy in “Nature.” Nobel laureate Erwin Schrödinger, one of the architects of quantum mechanics, wrote:

The scientific picture of the real world around me is…ghastly silent about all that…really matters to us….It knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity….
Whence came I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question…for every one of us. Science has no answer to it.2

Science knows nothing of truth—only physical facts. Lee Smolin, founding member of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Canada, has said: “When a child asks, ‘What is the world?’ we literally have nothing to tell….”3

The question why? irritates atheists because the maker decides the purpose for whatever is made. Without a Creator, neither the universe nor life has any meaning. Without God, there is no reason for a rose bud or for the dew that makes it shimmer in the morning sun —or for anything else that we hold dear and enjoy, including human existence itself.

Why is everything the way it is? Because God is the way He is. But who is this God? Is he Zeus of the Greeks, Brahman of the Hindus, Allah of Islam? Does it matter? Can’t we just acknowledge a “higher power”? Higher than what? Power? No impersonal “power” could create personal beings. Nor could any “force” conceive and write in words on DNA the directions for constructing and operating all living things.

Atheism leads to numerous absurdities promoted by otherwise intelligent people. Sir Francis Crick, Nobel laureate as co-discoverer of the DNA language, begins his book, The Astonishing Hypothesis:

You, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules.4

If this is the way the universe made us, why does Crick call it Astonishing? He knows it is contrary to common sense. Yet to cling to his atheism he must persist in such madness. However, most people would firmly object to Crick’s description. Any thinking person knows he weighs choices carefully, experiences joys, sorrows, hopes, ambitions, fears, remorse, and regrets that are very real. But “science says” is a holy mantra that causes every knee to bow—except those who will not worship Baal (1 Ki:19:18
). Biologist Richard Lewontin defiantly boasts:

We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs…for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.5

Arch atheist and outspoken enemy of God, Richard Dawkins, claims that we are merely vehicles through which “selfish genes” perpetuate themselves. Yet he says genes have no foresight. They do not plan ahead. Genes just are. He also states, “Much as we might wish to believe otherwise, universal love and the welfare of the species…are concepts that simply do not make evolutionary sense.”6 What an admission!

If evolution makes us incapable of true love, morals, or ethics, why do we admire these qualities? How can we be so unnatural, if we are the offspring of nature? Crick and Dawkins seem embarrassed that many of the human qualities that everyone possesses could not have been produced by evolution. We do not think and act like we should if we were evolved from lower creatures.

The language component in the human gene “is identical in every particular to [that in] a snail. [Only] the sequence of building blocks is…different….”7 The organizational genius behind DNA is breathtaking. Using the same four letters for plants, animals, and man, distinction is maintained not only between all kinds of living things but between individuals of each kind. This ingenious arrangement sets bounds which make it impossible for DNA of one kind of life to change into DNA of another kind.

Unquestionably, the DNA language, which is the basis of all life, did not and cannot evolve. The similarity between man’s DNA and that of all animals is no more evidence that man evolved from animals than is the similarity in human and plant DNA evidence that we evolved from plants.

Evolution did not make us. God made us. But atheists cling to evolution as an escape from accountability to God. Darwin’s theory was his revenge against the god he could no longer believe in, the “god” that had allowed his daughter, Annie, to die. Darwinism’s atheism prevents science from knowing why things are as they are. Without God there is no answer to the why for anything. Yet here we are in a vast and awesome universe and common sense cries out for a reason for its existence and ours.

Why is everything the way it is? Only because God, who created it all, is the way He is. And why is God the way He is? Because, unlike the capricious gods of non-Christian religions, God revealed Himself to Moses thus: “I AM THAT I AM” (Ex 3:14). Consistently the Bible’s God declares, “I am the LORD, I change not (Mal:3:6).” God is outside of, and untouched by, the time and change so evident in our world.

Dawkins says, “Genes just are.” No, genes are not self-existent and eternal. They had to have a Maker. God alone has no maker but is the Maker of all: self-existent, uncreated, unchanging, perfect, eternal, omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent. For God to be God, this is who He must be.

Why is everything the way it is? Because God, who made all, is the way He is. Of the newly created universe, we read: “God saw everything that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gn 1:31). Why was everything “good”? Because God who made everything is good: “There is none good but one, that is God” (Mt 19:17).

Even in its present corrupt state, much in the universe is still so beautiful that it thrills and moves us deeply because the God who made it is beautiful. David wrote: “I seek [to] dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord…” (Ps:27:4). We need greater appreciation of God’s beauty!

Why is there some apparent “good” even in a Hitler or a Stalin? Nazi extermination camp guards who had presided over the murder of Jews all day could come home at night, kiss their wives, play with their children, and enjoy listening to Wagner. This is because God, who is good, made man in His image (Gn 1:26,27). Although sin separated all mankind from a holy God, a remnant of the image of God in which we were created remains. Yet everything man touches, even love, is corrupted.

The man who persuades a woman to live with him without marriage tells her, “I love you.” But what he may mean (perhaps unknown even to him) could be, “I love myself, and I want you.” Only too late they may discover that this is what both of them mean by “love.”

Why the blight, rot, and death that taunts us everywhere? This, too, is because God is the way He is. Without God, whose character reveals and condemns it, there would be no sin; and without God’s law written in man’s conscience, there would be no knowledge of sin: “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things” (Is 45:7).

How could a good God create evil? The same way the God who is light creates darkness. A person who was born and died in a cave in total darkness would not know he was in the dark until someone shined a light. The light suddenly reveals the darkness for what it is; and God’s holy perfection reveals evil for what it is. The haunting memory of paradise lost lingers elusively in man’s heart. Why must it be this way? Because the God who is good is also holy and just—and man, made in His image, rebelled.

What about eternal torment in the Lake of Fire? That, too, is because God is love and God is just. He created man to live forever in the joy of His love—not as an “extra” but as man’s very life. Those who reject God’s love consign themselves to the eternal torment of a burning thirst for the One who made them for Himself. Heaven will be the eternal satisfaction of the living water flowing “out of the throne of God and of the Lamb” (Rv 22:1). Hell will be eternally dying from burning thirst for God, the horror of fully knowing one’s sin and rebellion, and the realization that one is there only because of rejecting Christ.

“God is love” (1 Jn:4:8,16). Love is the essence of His being. He loves us and wants to forgive us; but He is also holy and just. For God to forgive sinners without the full penalty being paid would contradict His justice and make Him our partner in evil. Christ fully paid that penalty for our sins—but the pardon must be willingly and gladly received. God will not force anyone into heaven.

Atheists scoff, “How could a good God create this evil world? If God can’t stop suffering and death, He is too weak to be God; and if He could but doesn’t, He is a monster unworthy of our trust.” In fact, this is not the world God made but the one we made in rebellion against Him. Don’t blame God for what we have done to His once-perfect world!


Why did God allow man to rebel? That fact, too, is true because “God is love.” We can neither receive and enjoy His love nor love Him in return (or love one another) without the power of choice. Love is from the heart. The ability to say “yes” means nothing without the equal ability to say “no.” Tragically, Adam and Eve, chose to say “no” to God and to follow Satan. The entire universe suffers as a result: “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now…waiting…” (Rom:8:20-23).

Those who reject the truth reject God. Sir David Attenborough, producer of decades of TV programs promoting evolution, argued:

The God you believe in…an all-merciful God created…a parasitic worm…that can live in no other way than in an innocent child’s eyeball [in West Africa]?8

No, that is not the way the universe was at the beginning. And during the millennial reign of Christ, the world will be restored to its original condition, without animals devouring one another, without microbes and parasites preying on other living things: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb…the leopard shall lie down with the kid…the calf and the young lion…together; and a little child shall lead them….The lion shall eat straw like the ox…the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’ den…for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD…” (Is 11:6-9).

In Christ alone, and His payment of the penalty for our sins upon the Cross, we find reconciliation to God and ultimate meaning and purpose. “All things were made by him…” (Jn:1:2). O mystery! The babe born in Bethlehem was and forever is “the mighty God, the everlasting Father” (Is 9:6). Jesus said, “I and my Father are one” (Jn:10:30).

How can we understand and better know this infinite God? He made us for Himself, and we naturally thirst for Him: “My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God…” (Ps:42:2). Yet those in rebellion foolishly attempt to quench that thirst in earthly possessions, pleasures, and pride. It was to reveal God to man as the only One who could fulfill that inner longing that Jesus, God’s “only begotten” Son (Jn:1:14; 3:16, etc.) was born into this world.

The suffering that Christ endured at men’s hands revealed the evil in all of our hearts. That suffering, which we inflicted upon Him, could not save us. It was the punishment for our sins that Jesus suffered on the Cross under God’s wrath against sin that made it possible for all to be forgiven who believe on Him. It is because He fully paid that penalty in our place that He can say, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink” (Jn:7:37).

He who was born of a virgin and fully man is also fully God: “For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily (Col:2:9); who being the brightness of his [God the Father’s] glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power…by himself purged our sins…” (Heb:1:3).

Paul declared, “Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory” (1 Tm 3:16). Though now we only dimly understand (“we see through a glass darkly [and] know in part”–1 Cor:13:12), we have the glorious promise that the more we by faith look upon, meditate upon, and understand our Lord Jesus Christ, the more clearly we see Him and become like Him: “But we all, with open [unveiled] face beholding as in a glass [mirror] the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor:3:18).


The revelation of Christ, for which our souls thirst, thrills us increasingly as we more clearly understand who He is in all His fullness and what He accomplished to reconcile us to Himself. Something of His glorious person is beautifully expressed in Graham Kendrick’s hymn:

Meekness and majesty, manhood and deity,
In perfect harmony—the man who is God;
Lord of eternity, dwells in humanity,
Kneels in humility, and washes our feet.

Father’s pure radiance, perfect in innocence,
Yet learns obedience to death on a cross;
Suffering to give us life,
Conquering through sacrifice—
And as they crucify, prays, “Father, forgive.”

Wisdom unsearchable, God the invisible,
Love indestructible in frailty appears;
Lord of infinity, stooping so tenderly
Lifts our humanity
To the heights of his throne.

Oh, what a mystery—Meekness and majesty;
Bow down and worship,
For this is your God,
This is your God!

Dave Hunt, The Berean Call (April 1, 2007)

Endnotes

  1. Max Planck, “The Mystery of Our Being,” in Quantum Questions, ed. Ken Wilbur (Boston: New Science Library, 1984), 153.
  2. Erwin Schrödinger, quoted in Quantum, 81.
  3. Dennis Overbye, “Physics awaits new options as Standard Model idles,” Symmetry, vol 03, issue 06, August 06.
  4. Francis Crick, The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul (New York: Touchstone/Simon & Schuster, 1994), 3.
  5. Richard Lewontin, “Billions and Billions of Demons, The New York Review, January 9, 1997, 31.
  6. Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press, 30th anniversary edition, 2006), 2.
  7. Dawkins, Selfish, 22.
  8. M. Buchanan, “Wild, Wild Life,” Sydney Morning Herald, The Guide, March 24, 2003, 6.

Beguiling With Enticing Words

“And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.” (Colossians 2:4)

This Scripture is a perfect representation of those who would try to deceive people into accepting the false paradigm of Darwinian evolution, in which nature serves as an imposter diety magically crafting and molding creatures over millions of years.

The verse contains two very interesting Greek words that occur rarely in the New Testament. The first word of note is only used twice and is the verb paralogizomai, translated here as “beguile.” It was used by the ancient Greeks to denote persuasiveness of speech or the putting forth of a seemingly plausible argument undergirded by dangerously false information. The second time it’s used is in James 1:22 concerning self-deception: “But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving [paralogizomai] your own selves.”

The second Greek word of note is the highly descriptive noun pithanologia, translated as “enticing words,” and is only used in this one place in the New Testament. It’s a combination of the word pithanos, meaning convincing, persuasive, or plausible, with logos, meaning word or account. The Greeks used it to describe arguments made by sophists, who were noted for affirming false scenarios, trying to make them appear true. In modern English we would say “to talk someone into something false.”
 

Paul indicated he had to make this warning concerning deception because he’d just previously declared “the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ; In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (Colossian 2:2-3). Indeed, all evolutionary deception ultimately steals the glory of Jesus Christ the Creator, “for in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (v. 9).

Source: The Berean Call

The Degenerating Influence of Ritualism.

The tendency of all ecclesiastical ritualism is to produce

 a spirit of superstition to the subversion of faith,
 
of mere formality to the guidance of the Holy Spirit

and resting in our own good works

to the rejection of the finished work of Christ. 

The Word of God is practically set aside,

the Holy Spirit grieved,

and the heart laid open to the inroads of Satan. 

When faith is in lively exercise,

The Word of God strictly followed, 

and the promised guidance of the Comforter relied upon,

the soul is strong and vigorous in the divine life, 

and suggestions of the enemy are unheeded.

Satan is a keen observer 

of the different states of the believer's soul,

and of the professing Church.

He knows when he will be successful

 in his attempt 

against the individual believer or the Church:

he waits his time --

he watches for opportunity.

When he sees the mind taking a wrong direction,

he soothes, flatters, stimulates --

solemn thought for us all!  

Andrew Miller, Miller's Church History (Pickering and Inglis, LTD, London), p. 237

Christian Joy

The abiding message of Philippians concerns the nature and grounds of Christian joy. For Paul, true joy is not a surface emotion that depends on favorable circumstances of the moment. Christian joy is independent of outward conditions, and is possible even in the midst of adverse circumstances, such as suffering and persecution.

Joy ultimately arises from fellowship with the risen, glorified Christ. Throughout the letter, Paul speaks of joy in the Lord, emphasizing that through Christ alone is Christian joy realized, as are other Christian graces. Essential to this joy is the confident conviction of the lordship of Christ, based on experience of the power of His resurrection. Because of this conviction, life for Paul attained meaning. Even death became a friend, because it would bring him into a fuller experience of the presence of Christ (1:21-23).

The joy presented in Philippians involves eager expectation of the near return of the Lord. That this expectation was dominant in Paul’s thinking is seen in his five references to Christ’s return. In the context of each reference is a note of joy (1:6, 10; 2:16; 3:20; 4:5).

Paul further describes a joy that springs from fellowship in the spreading of the gospel. He begins the letter by thanking the Philippians for their partnership in spreading the gospel through their monetary gifts. The gifts, however, are only an expression of their spirit of fellowship, or as he puts it in 4:17, “the fruit that abounds to your account.” So Christian joy is an outgrowth of being in the active fellowship of the body of Christ.

This letter reveals the timeless message that true joy is to be found only in a dynamic personal relationship with Jesus Christ and in the assurance that God is able to turn adverse circumstances to our good and His glory. Because he was united to Christ by a living faith, Paul could claim contentment in all circumstances. His unadorned testimony was “I rejoice … and will rejoice” (1:18), and his unqualified command was, “Rejoice . . . again I will say, rejoice! (4:4).

Introduction to The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Philippians, Spirit Filled Life Bible, General Editor Jack W. Hayford, Litt.D. (Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1991), pp. 1800-1801

Rationalism vs Revelation: The Mind vs The Heart

“A different form of attack upon the Scriptures, which may be described as Rationalism, was developed in the 19th century. Rationalism set aside Revelation, assuming the sufficiency of the mind, or Reason, to enable man to find out truth and to attain to the highest good.

The unprecedented progress made in scientific knowledge not only gave valuable insight into the works of God in Creation, but also stirred in some minds a desire to explain creation apart from God. This made it necessary to prove that the account of the Creation given in the book of Genesis did not spring from Divine inspiration, but from the ignorance of men, who, living before us, were presumed to have known less than we do. As fresh discoveries were made in the illimitable field of Nature, theories were founded upon them which were said to be incompatible with the Genesis history and therefore to prove it incorrect. As further facts came to light new theories had to be formed, each displacing its predecessor, yet each in turn accepted on the authority of the learning of the men of science who promulgated it. The “Origin of Species” published by Charles Darwin in 1859 is an important landmark in this development of thought.

Those who accepted the view that there had been no creation, of necessity lost the knowledge of the Creator. This involved the loss of all revealed knowledge, for the revelation of God through the Scriptures begins with Creation as the work of God, without which there could have been no Fall of His creature, Man; and neither need nor possibility of man’s Redemption. Consequently, the new theories evolved from the minds of men who discarded the Scripture teaching of the Fall, replacing it by constantly changing theories of the development of man from a lower form of life. The experience of Salvation and the hope of Redemption became incredible on the basis of these teachings, and whatever vague promises might be held out to the race, the individual was left without hope.

Although in the minds of the multitude evolution has replaced God the Creator, so that many trace their ancestry from beasts rather than from God, and are ignorant of God as their Redeemer, yet not all, even among those recognized as the most eminent men of science, have followed this teaching. It would not be correct to say that increase of knowledge of the facts of Nature necessarily leads to disbelief in God or in the Scriptures. Many have found that the more they have learned of the works of God in Creation the more they have appreciated the consonance of this revelation with that contained in the Scriptures. Indeed, the assertion so often and so eagerly made that no modern, intelligent, educated man can believe the Scriptures, is without foundation. It is not a fact that the more people know the less they believe, nor yet that the more ignorant they are the more faith they possess.

Rationalism is largely due to the failure to recognize that man is not only mind, but mind and heart, and that the mind always serves the heart. The heart, which is the character, will and affections, and is the seat of experience, uses in its service the mind, with its intelligence and reasoning powers. The heart of the natural man uses his mind in order to justify his unbelief in God and in Scripture by finding countless reasons for complaint against God, and contradictions and errors in the Scriptures, but if this same man has an experience which brings him to see his sinful state, his need of salvation, and Christ is revealed to him, then his heart — that is his will and affections —are captured; they go out to Christ in faith as Saviour and Lord, and the Divine and Eternal Life is communicated to him, as it is written: “that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:16). With that his mind, though neither more or less capable, intelligent and instructed than before, enters into the service of a changed heart, finding truth and beauty and revelation in the very Scriptures which it formerly despised, and discovering in the ways of God constant reason for thanksgiving and worship. Saul the persecutor, changed to Paul the apostle is a striking illustration of this.

Excerpt from The Pilgrim Church by E.H. Broadbent, pp. 493-495

Priesthood of The Believer and A Once for All Sacrifice

“But the doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers is not merely a negative teaching abolishing an order of clergy. For along with that freedom which makes the believer responsible only to God for his faith and life, there is an added responsibility. We are members of a Christian community, “an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession” (1 Peter 2:9). As Christians, then, we are not “laymen,” not mere spectators of the Christian enterprise who may or may not engage in it as we choose, but “priests,” and therefore responsible to God for the faith and lives of others.

We are under obligation to make known this message of salvation. The word
“layman” is not found in the New Testament, nor is there any “layman’s movement” in the Bible. A priest is inevitably involved in the lives of others, and is responsible to God for others. He has the high privilege and duty of making God known to others.

This priesthood, therefore, applies to all believers, and consists of two things: (1) Immediate access to God in prayer for one’s self, and (2) the right and duty of intercession for others. Only as we grasp these ideas can we appreciate the full, rich meaning of the doctrine of the universal priesthood of believers.

Furthermore, we are a royal priesthood. That means that we have been called, chosen, by the King of Kings to be His priests before our fellow men. We are not first of all clergy and laymen. We are first of all a royal priesthood, under obligation individually to make known the message of salvation. And the strength of Protestantism lies precisely here, in the willingness of its people to accept this strange office and all that it means, and to serve in the household of God as the royal priests that we really are.

False religion has created “priest” who inserts themselves between man and God insisting that they alone are the source of God’s marvelous grace therefore you have to come to them. The New Testament says this is a lie.”

“In the Epistle to the Hebrews several chapters are devoted to showing that the Old Testament priesthood has been abolished and that there is no place in Christianity for a sacrificing priesthood, because Christ, “through his own blood, entered in once for all into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption,” and that He has offered “one sacrifice for sins forever” (9:12, 10:12). The many human priests (of OT Israel) with their innumerable animal sacrifices were effective in their work of reconciling the people to God only because they represented the true High Priest and the one true sacrifice that was to come. But after the reality appeared, there would be no more need for the shadows and types that had preceded it.

Hence we read concerning the sacrifice of Christ: “But now once at the end of the ages hath he been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself”(Hebrews 9:26); and again: “We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). The sacrifice of Christ was therefore a “once-for-all” sacrifice which only He could make, and which cannot be repeated. By its very nature it was final and complete.

It was a work of Deity, and so cannot be repeated by man any more than can the work of creation. By that one sacrifice the utmost demands of God’s justice were fully and forever satisfied. Final atonement has been accomplished! No further order of priests is needed to offer additional sacrifices or to perpetuate that one. His was the one sacrifice to end all sacrifices. Let all men now look to that one sacrifice on Calvary!

Any continuing priesthood and any “unbloody repetition of the mass,” which professes to offer the same sacrifice that Christ offered on Calvary, is in reality merely a sham and a recrudescence of Judaism within the Christian Church.”

Source: Roman Catholicism by Lorraine Boettner, p. 43 and 45, online version

Dear Reader, false religion will insert itself between you and Jesus Christ, and tell you they are the source of the grace God wants to freely give you. Jesus said,

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and YOU WILL FIND REST FOR YOUR SOULS. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matthew 11: 28-29 NASB, emphasis added)

Do not let any Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant priest/minister stand between you and God. Jesus Christ is your High Priest if your born again and you yourself are a priest before Almighty God (I Peter 2:9). The New Testament exhorts us,

“Since then we have a high priest who has passed through the heavens , Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrew 4:14-16)

If you have not been born again, which Jesus said you must be to enter the Kingdom of God (John 3), I encourage you to put your faith and trust in Jesus’ death on the cross for your sins today. Ask Him to forgive you of your sins, to save you from the wrath to come and be your Lord and Savior. He will. Then He will give you the gift of the Holy Spirit to guide you through this life and to lead you into all truth about our Himself. Then find you a Bible teaching church where you can be baptized and grow in grace and faith feeding on the Word of God only, not the commandments and teachings of men.

So be it! May God richly bless you and lead you into all Truth. Carl

Eats

“As the outward man is not fit for work for any length of time unless he eats, so it is with the inner man. What is the food for the inner man? Not prayer, but the Word of God—not the simple reading of the Word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water runs through a pipe. No, we must consider what we read, ponder over it, and apply it to our hearts.” —George Müller

Source: Berean Call

Relax

Genesis 6:3
“And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.”

Before the Flood people were living hundreds of years. As man grew more evil, God declared that man’s lifespan would be reduced to 120 years. Modern biology has learned that we do indeed have built-in timers in each of our cells that limit the number of times they can divide. When enough cells can no longer divide, we die. We can even do things to speed up the timers.

The timers are called telomeres. However, every time a cell divides, a small part of each telomere is lost. When these telomeres are worn down to nothing, the cell no longer divides and soon dies. Researchers studied 58 healthy women between the ages of 20 and 50. All the women had children, but 39 of them had a child that was seriously chronically ill. Stress levels were measured through questionnaires while blood samples provided information about their cell health. Among other things, scientists checked for levels of an enzyme that maintains the health of telomeres. The mothers who saw their stress levels as high proved to have much shorter telomeres than those who reported little stress. They reported that cells from stressed women had telomeres that were as short as unstressed women ten years older.

Scripture tells us to cast all our cares on the Lord. Among the many blessings of doing so are healthy telomeres.

Prayer: Father, I cast all my cares on You. You have loved me through Your Son, Jesus Christ. I trust Your love. Amen.

Author: Paul A. Bartz

Ref: Science News, 12/4: 2004, p. 355, C. Brownlee, “Stressed to Death.” Photo: Human chromosomes (grey) capped by telomeres (white). Courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy Human Genome Program. (PD)

Source: Creation Moments

Self-Governing

“We have staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”– James Madison, Primary Author of the U.S. Constitution, Fourth President of the United States of America

If I Really Believed…

The question I asked myself today is if I really believe the Scriptures below concerning what Jesus and the New Testament say about the “second death”, what would I do differently today?

My answer was to seize the opportunities that present themselves to share the gospel with a fellow human being. And that is what I was able to do.

What would you do differently?

  1. Revelation 20:14- “And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire.”
  2. Revelation 21:8 – “But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murders and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.
  3. Revelation 2:11 – “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches, He who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.
  4. Revelation 20:6 -“Blessed and holy is the one who has a part in the first resurrection; over these the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with Him for a thousand years.”
  5. Matthew 10:28 – Jesus says: “Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.”
  6. John 3:16 – Jesus says: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have eternal life. “
  7. (“Perish” means to experience the second death.)
  8. Romans 5: 8-10 – “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through Him. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.
  9. (“the wrath of God” – the second death is the ultimate expression of His just wrath.)
  10. Ephesians 2:7-9 – “…in order that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God…”

If you possess this “gift” of salvation, please find a way to share it with the hopeless and dying souls all around us that are unknowingly headed to a second death.

Be faithful to God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ,

Carl

Preparing The Church For Persecution- From Believers Who Have and Are Being Persecuted

(The following is written by four Chinese pastors from the underground church in Communist China. They have or are experiencing persecution from the Communist China government simply because they are born again Christians. They have spent a combined total of 47 years in prison for their faith in Jesus Christ. The source of the article is omitted due to security issues. Carl)

“In recent years—especially since the start of the Covid pandemic—many believers around the world have contacted us to ask if we can share insights or do interviews into how Christians can survive persecution, as they see the storm clouds of persecution gathering on the horizon in their countries.

First, we point out that we have written more than a dozen books on the Church in China, each containing principles and testimonies of how God has not only helped His children survive six decades of persecution, but has caused them to thrive, so that China is still experiencing the greatest revival in Christian history.

When we try to help church leaders and believers in the West prepare for persecution, after more dialogue it usually emerges that they are not really looking for straight answers. Often, what people mean when they ask these questions is: “How can we survive persecution in our current church structures, so we don’t have to suffer or change?”

The answer to this is… you cannot!

True, physical persecution (e.g. when Christians are being arrested, beaten, imprisoned, or even killed) will not leave most current church structures intact. It will completely dismantle them!

Gone will be the denominations, emphasis on church buildings, Reverends, division between “clergy” and other believers, and all kinds of church traditions and outward imagery that are not found in Scripture. They will be swept away.

This pattern is what happened when persecution was ramped up against believers in China, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and other countries we work in.

We don’t know if severe persecution is coming to your part of the world soon, but we must be prepared. The Lord Jesus said, “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9), while the Apostle Paul told Timothy that “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12).

We would like to conclude by sharing five important truths about persecution, which we hope will bring encouragement and focus to our fellow believers:

  1. God is always in control! If He allows persecution to come, it’s for the good of His kingdom. In China, believers only experienced the full joy of intimacy with Jesus when they were in the furnace of affliction and after they came out the other side.
  2. Persecution is the last thing our flesh desires, but our faith must rest on the fact that the Lord Jesus will not let us down, and He will never leave nor forsake us. Persecution cannot destroy our relationship with Him: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?” (Romans 8:35).
  3. Importantly, when intense hardship comes, we shouldn’t see only the hand of Satan in persecution. In China, God’s people looked back later and realized that it was actually the Lord Jesus overseeing the entire process out of love for His children. He is zealous to remove the dead religious structures that trap people in bondage and keep millions of unbelievers from being able to see the true Gospel.
  4. Persecution is a pruning process, when the Holy Spirit removes half-hearted believers from among the flock. In China, when fierce persecution first broke out in the 1950s, around two-thirds of churchgoers fell away from the faith. The Lord Jesus told us this would occur: “When trouble or persecution comes because of the Word, they quickly fall away” (Mark 4:17). Friends, if two-thirds of Chinese Christians fell away at the onset of persecution, how might things be in your part of the world?
  5. For those who do not give up, persecution often brings great revival. In China, the number of Christians has grown from less than one million to over 100 million after 60 years of brutal Communist persecution! All glory to God. When that realization dawned on believers, many learned not only to grimly endure persecution, but to embrace it as a special blessing from God.

May God Almighty continue to bless and multiply His church in Communist China. May the church in the West return to its New Testament roots before the fires of persecution makes it return to that unchanging guidance He has given us! Carl

Epistles: The Pandemic Origins of Child Baptism

(Blogger note: I have been doing research on the origin of infant baptism and found this article by Francesco Arduini published in the Biblical Archaeology Review shed light on how the practice may have originated though it was not practiced in the New Testament. I share it with you for your consideration. May God lead you in His ways! Carl)

Pandemics can influence and radically alter habits and practices of entire populations. Billions of people have personally tested this phenomenon during the current Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) crisis. History knows numerous signs of behavioral practice changes that can be attributed to pandemics, such as the bubonic plague that devastated medieval Europe in the mid-14th century, upsetting many sectors of civil life, or the pestilence that ravaged the Byzantine Empire during the reign of Justinian (mid-sixth century C.E.), even forcing the Goths and the Byzantines to suspend the war fought on the Apennine Peninsula.

Like other catastrophes, pandemics can be critical and polarizing events that generate societal changes beyond the immediate, health-centered issues. Some historical pandemics also had considerable religious consequences: They fueled religious radicalism, encouraged reform movements, and inspired theological discourse. One ancient pandemic even helped to establish the Christian rite of baptism administered to little children and infants—a practice not attested in early Christian communities until the late second century.1

Sometime during 165 C.E., under Emperor Marcus Aurelius (r. 161–180), the Roman Empire was struck by the first documented devastating outbreak of an infectious disease.a Known as the Antonine Plague, it probably was the first appearance of smallpox in the Mediterranean and Europe. The origin of this pandemic was probably in the city of Seleucia, near present-day Baghdad. According to the most widely accepted hypothesis, the Roman soldiers sent to invade Parthia returned in 165, spreading the plague all the way back to Rome, where, according to some modern estimates, smallpox at its apex killed approximately 5,000 people per day.

Mortality was so high it was not unusual to see caravans of fully loaded chariots carrying dead bodies from cities. The scourge reportedly wiped out more than 90 percent of the population in limited areas of Egypt and probably more than 20 percent of the Roman Empire’s total population.2

Christians likely managed to face and overcome the epidemic with greater success than pagans. It can be assumed that the organization of the Christian communities and the care that individual members showed toward the sick may have reduced their mortality rate. However, smallpox tends to cause a high mortality among children, and Christians certainly were not exempt.

The pandemic generated a religious response in the highest echelons of Roman society. Marcus Aurelius restored temples and shrines, summoned priests, and called for every form of prayer to calm the divine anger that he believed was at the origin of the plague. These unusual religious manifestations probably began around 166.3

So what kind of impact did the Antonine Plague have on Christian communities?

One might imagine that the sense of fear and impotence felt by the population along with the revival of religious sensitivities may have contributed to the growth and rapid spread of Christianity throughout the empire.b However, it is plausible that Christian communities were first reorganized internally, including on a theological level.

There hasn’t ever been a Christian community that, at any time, would not request baptism for those who wanted to be part of it. The practice of the rite generated heated debate in the 1950s and 1960s concerning the legitimacy of administering baptism to children and infants. If today the tone of the debate has somewhat dampened, it is due more to a certain fatigue than to a consensus.

The first mention of child baptism comes from the bishop Irenaeus and dates to c. 180 C.E. (Adversus haereses 2.22.4). But we must wait another 20 years to find a clear statement on the baptism of children, put in writing by the prolific author Tertullian, in c. 200 C.E. (De baptismo 18.1.4–5). Tertullian opposed baptizing children, who do not fully understand the significance of the rite. However, it is equally clear that by the end of the second century child baptism was already a reality. About 15 years later, the theologian Hippolytus in his Apostolic Tradition provides a palpable liturgical formulation of the baptism of children (21).

To what factor do we owe the rapid establishment of this habit within the Christian community between 180 and 200 C.E.? The growing number of those who were born into Christian families (as opposed to adult converts) meant an increasing presence of children within the Christian community. When we consider the high infant mortality rate, we can see how an emergency practice of administering the salvific (i.e. leading to salvation) baptism to infants eventually became a normal practice—even more so under the circumstances of a cruel pandemic. Once the emergency of the epidemic was over, in 180 C.E., Irenaeus and other Christian theologians developed a theology of infant baptism and spread the teaching in the following 20 years, so much so that Tertullian, at the dawn of the third century, speaks of it as a commonly accepted practice.

The problem with this scenario is that the connection between the beginnings of infant baptism and the Antonine Plague is purely hypothetical, because no literary source explicitly expresses it. Intriguingly, not only is the link between the plague and infant baptism missing, but also any type of generic mention of the plague in the writings of contemporary Christian authors. We can assume that in the middle of the Antonine Plague every learned debate was silenced by the emergency of the epidemic. The plausible demands for seriously ill children by their Christian parents, who wanted to ensure their salvation through baptism, needed immediate action. It was only when the calamity ended that the first references to the baptism of children began to appear, while the silence of the sources on the plague itself persisted.

So why this silence even after 180 C.E.?

The majority pagan population considered the epidemic a sign of the gods’ disfavor, putting the blame on Christians. Christianity, still living in the imminence of Christ’s return, interpreted this event in a similar manner—as God’s disapproval of the world’s immorality, despite Christians’ presence. The Antonine Plague was the first devastating demographic catastrophe that struck the church. Apologists had to face a sort of theological disorientation: how to justify this “divine punishment.” Is it possible that this disorientation resulted in the puzzling silence of literary sources?

Throughout the subapostolic period, there is no explicit reference to the baptism of children. Every time the topic is tackled, children are considered pure regardless. This was orthodoxy up to the time of the Christian theologian Justin (in 150 C.E.), who was the last apologist to write about baptism before the Antonine Plague struck the Roman Empire (First Apology 61.9–10). Thirty years later, with Irenaeus, the situation seems to have changed, and, after 20 more years, we learn from Tertullian that the practice of infant baptism was implemented unreservedly.

Between 150 and 180 C.E. something must have happened that would justify such an important and unprecedented change. The Antonine Plague fits perfectly in the history of baptismal theology, presenting itself as a crucial event on the world stage.

FRANCESCO ARDUINI is an author and independent researcher in biblical studies and the history of Christianity. He wrote the book Il battesimo dei bambini (2010).

From Demon Worshippers to Children of God

Following are testimonies from the Wa people of northern Myanmar concerning being animists and their conversion to evangelical Christianity. Reading on the internet about animists, some writers would lead you to believe that being an animist is a positive thing. The Christian Wa people would beg to differ as the following testimonies reveal:

“My name is Khuat, and I am a 53-year-old pastor.
My parents were animists who offered sacrifices
to the spirits every month, and our family was
plunged into poverty and bondage to cruel demons.
In 2001 I heard of God’s love and forgiveness, and I
committed my life to Jesus. We smashed all our
idols and the Lord blessed us in every way. I was
eager to read the Bible, but for years I could not
find even one for sale. Now you have brought many
Bibles to us, and we are overwhelmed with joy.
Thank you! You have done the greatest thing possible.

“My name is Nyi. Everyone in my family lived in fear
of the spirits for generations. We did all we could to
appease them, but in return we got death and suffering. My mother died when I was a baby, and my
father died when I was 8. Then when I was 13 my
brother died and there was no one to take care of
me. I started using drugs, and at my lowest point a
Christian told me about Jesus, and He changed my
life! I even graduated from Bible school, and now I
serve my Wa people, getting as many saved as I can.
The Word of God you gave us is so precious!“

“My name is Moe, and I am 19 years old. My family were animists, so we served the spirits and
had never heard about Jesus. My friend told me
the Good News, and I went to church with her.
The pastor gave me a Bible and I brought it home,
but my father was the village shaman so he didn’t
let me read the Bible. One day my mother fell ill,
and my father spent all our money to try to make
her well. He heard that Jesus could heal the sick,
so he let her go to the church with me. She was
healed that day, and now my whole family are
Christians! Thank you for the wonderful Bibles
you freely gave us.”

The anthropologist who say that these tribes should be left alone and not evangelized are deceived themselves by the powers of darkness and do not have the spiritual discernment to understand the great spiritual and physical deception that these people suffer under.

Lord Jesus understood it, that is why He said to go into all the earth and preach the gospel and set the captives (of the demons) free!

Has He set you free from the sins or idols that bind you up?

Carl

(The Bibles they refer to were printed and donated by the supporters of Asia Harvest.)

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